Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Jilani, Zaid. “Barack Obama Is Using His Presidency to Cash In, But Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter Refused” (01 May 2017) The Intercept.

Defenders of Barack Obama’s
decision to do things like accept a $400,000 check for a speech
to a Wall Street brokerage house argue that the former president might
as well cash in — everyone else does.

That was Daily Show host Trevor
Noah’s defense of
Obama. “People are like why doesn’t he not accept the money? No, f*** that,”
Noah said. “So the first black president must also be the first one to not take
money afterwards? No no no my friend. He can’t be the first of everything! F***
that, and f*** you. Make that money, Obama!”

This argument, while common, is
based on historical ignorance. It assumes that presidents have always found a
way to leverage their political connections post-presidency to make money from
interest groups and wealthy political actors.

But that isn’t the case.

It used to be the norm for
presidents to retire to ordinary life after their stint in the White House —
just ask Harry Truman.

When the Democratic president
was getting ready to leave the White House in 1953, he was approached by many
employers. The Los Angeles Times noted
that if he was “unemployed after he leaves the White House it won’t be for lack
of job offers … but [he] has accepted none of them.”

One of those job offers was
from a Florida real estate developer, asking him to become a “chairman,
officer, or stockholder, at a figure of not less than $100,000” — the sort of
position that is commonplace today for ex-politicians. Presumably, had Truman
taken the position, it would have been a good deal for both parties: the
president’s prestige and connections would also enrich the company.

Truman declined. “I could never
lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize
on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency,” he
wrote of his refusal to influence-peddle.

Although he had access to a
small pension from his military service, Truman had little financial support
after leaving office. He moved
back into his family home in Independence, Mo., and insisted on being
treated like anyone else. He would tell people not to call him “Mr. President,”
and settled on a fairly ordinary routine once he was back in Independence. He
would take a morning walk through the town square. He kept an office nearby where
he would answer mail from Americans. He chose to engage with just about anyone
who walked into his office — not only people who wrote him big checks, or
invited him onto their private
yachts and private islands.

“Many people,” he once said,
“feel that a president or an ex-president is partly theirs — they are right to
some extent — and that they have a right to call upon him.” Indeed, his office
number was even listed in a nearby telephone directory.

He eventually agreed
to write a memoir for Life magazine, but it was a lengthy project that provided
far from luxurious stipends.

Truman’s modest life
post-presidency moved Congress in 1958 to establish a pension
system that provides an annual cash payout as well as expenses for an office
and staff.

But his successor, Jimmy
Carter, who grew up in a modest home in Plains, Georgia, did not follow Ford’s
example. He refused to become a professional paid speaker or join corporate
boards. He moved back to Plains, and was welcomed home by a crowd of neighbors
and supporters.

He quickly made himself busy as
a nonprofit founder and a volunteer diplomat. He did make money post-presidency
— but by serving ordinary people, not elites.

He wrote dozens of
best-selling books bought by millions of people across the world — the
post-presidency equivalent of small donors.

Carter explained his thinking
to the Guardian in 2011, telling
them that his “favorite president, and the one I admired most, was
Harry Truman. When Truman left office he took the same position. He didn’t
serve on corporate boards. He didn’t make speeches around the world for a lot
of money.”

The presidents who came after
did not choose the same path. At a time when Japan was a major trade rival with
the United States, Ronald Reagan flew to Japan for a series of paid speeches
after he left office. He accepted
$2 million for a pair of 20-minute speeches to the Fujisankei
Communications Group. An additional $5
million was arranged for expenses related to the visit.

Both Bushes also joined the
paid speech circuit, and the Clintons made
over $100 million from banks and other corporations, shortly after the
Clinton presidency deregulated Wall Street. “I never made any money until I
left the White House,” Bill Clinton lamented
to a student group in 2009. “I had the lowest net worth, adjusted for
inflation, of any president elected in the last 100 years, including President
Obama. I was one poor rascal when I took office. But after I got out, I made a
lot of money.”